Ghost Buck, alive and well after all these years…

November 26, 2015 33d Comments

My hunt gang will probably kill me for posting these images, but it needs to be discussed…

Back in Nov, 2011, I put out a Blog Post entitled; Pursuit of Ghost Buck Continues. It was essentially a photo essay of a special whitetail my gang and I had been hunting since 2009. Here were are 6 years later and I am STILL talking about the same deer!

And the best part is, this bad boy is still alive!!

Although I can’t know for sure the age of this old-timer, based on images I’ve gathered from 5-6 years ago when he had to be at least 3.5 years old, my Ghost Buck would now be approaching an incredible 10 years old!

A deer of this vintage is almost unheard of on Crown/public land, especially where we hunt. Deer numbers are dwindling and this aged warrior is one of the scant few whitetails we have left.

This is how the Ghost Buck appeared five years ago in October, 2010(already a 3+ year old at this point) He has a distinctive rack with a forked point on the right side, and has always been missing a browtine on the same side. (from an injury I assume he sustained at one point and was never able to grow a brow tine there)

 

 

And here is how the Ghost Buck looks this year:

ghost2015aghost2015b  

How does one particular deer manage to avoid the hoards of hunters (including us) for nearly a decade? It only goes to prove the resilience and smarts these animals possess and oh, did I mention Ghost Buck has NEVER been photographed during the day and, as far as I know, has also never been seen by a single human being.

I am ‘secretly’ hoping we never get the chance to harvest this special creature, as I’m not sure what I’d do even if I eventually had him in my sights.

Outdoorsguy

P.S. Special thanks to my good friends at Bushnell for providing all the great trail cameras for testing over the years!

33 thoughts on “Ghost Buck, alive and well after all these years…”

  1. I have seen the 10 point buck 3 times this fall season I walked for over 3 hours and found his bedding area this Monday I will set up on him and cross my fingers he crosses my area , but he is very smart on scent and new scents in his area I am stripping and keeping all of my clothes in the bush in a container with charcoal Jeff he’s my nemesis and I hope to have a glimpse of my ghost as well sleep well bucky your day is coming , I will keep you posted

  2. Try putting cedar or whatever is natural to the area in your container Mike. I find that it gets absorbed into your clothing and it’s a smell they are used to.

  6. jeff I saw the most unbelievable deer on sunday near my home after a goose hunt I was travelling on county rd 29 when I stopped and observed 3 large does what I thought was a feeder was actually the backview of a large doe with the back half white and the front brown I got a closer view as I tried to drive closer I was with my friends son so I know it wasn’t the water clouding my vision and there it stood a 2 coloured deer the first time in my life of hunting that I have seen this .I will bring my camera with me from now on , got to get a pic

    1. Hey Mike, I believe what you saw was a Piebald deer…and they are extremely rare. If you Google it you’ll see what I mean. Seems to be sort of a pigmentation issue and the normal whitetail colouration is replaced by white and brown patches or mottled mixed with white.

      You’re lucky to have seen one my friend!!

      Outdoorsguy

  7. That’s a crazy colour combination, pretty cool. I have also seen one with white markings although not as pronounced as that, quite a few years ago. I saw here more than once; she had a white mark almost like a star, on her left side only, marking the kill zone. A couple of other guys had seen her too.

  8. There are moose near Foliet Ontario that are more white than dark. Some might be completely white and in the past couple years the MNRF has moved to protect them from hunting and they are trying to turn it into a tourist attraction. Apparently the meat is exactly the same, they are just a different colour on the outside.
    I’d love to see one of the piebald deer but I’d shoot it just like an all brown one. The one difference is I’d have the hide done with hair on.

  9. hi jeff yes I was very lucky I will try and get a pic of her in the field if possible apparently they feed right in the corner pretty much every day I wont say where but boy these 4 does are sure large and I have yet to see the buck that might be courting these ladies

    1. Mmmmmmmm……deer track soup…oh wait, that’s bad!!

      Hey Trapper, things are not in great shape in your area ‘deer wise’?

      Outdoorguy

  11. @ Jeff you must not have seen his facebook status a few weeks ago… It was a WELL WRITTEN POEM. ROTFLMFAO

    1. Well written poem you say? I would LOVE to read that..come on Trapper, share with us why don’t you?

      Outdoorsguy

  13. This year’s poem is short and sweet,
    If i twittered this i’d tweet
    Another deer season has come to an end.
    And to the deer gods this message I send:
    go f**k yourself.

  14. I write a poem every year detailing our hunt, I should have kept them in a book and published them maybe hahaha

  15. I only know a part of one poem
    For the life of me I can’t remember the rest.

    There once was a man from Nantucket……..

    just can’t remember the rest
    but it’ll come to me.
    When it does I’ll post it. 😉

    1. Oh man…so..I guess the irony of my complaining there’s no deer around came back to bite me!

      On Friday I realized I had seen everything.. to my amazement.. A buck made a fresh rub right on only small tree we have on our entire property about 50 feet from my freaking house!

      Then I played my feeder cam photos back and realized he made it 9:30 on Thursday morning…damn wish I had seen that! He’s a big heavy 9-point last seen giving me the middle finger(or hoof I suppose)

      Outdoorsguy

  17. Just met up with a buddy that black powder hunted last week out near North Gower and they saw very few deer. Last year they saw a lot of deer in the same area

  18. Funny weather. Hunted all last week. Put in a lot of hours. Saw one deer. Took yesterday off, back at it tonight. Still have a boat and motor out. Debated going fishing. Dec 8th was the earliest I have ever been ice fishing. I think it was in 2008. A year ago tomorrow, it was a Thursday Dec 9, some dogs where running a deer. I had the muzzle loader. The lake had just frozen over the night before. My son who lives across the lake had just come home. He could hear a noice out on the ice. He looked out and saw three dogs swimming in the lake. Not that I approve of what he did next, but he flipped a boat over and dragged it out on the ice. He pulled one dog into the boat and then another. The third was a deer. He took the two dogs to shore and went back out for the deer. Put a rope around it’s neck and dragged it to shore. Happy ending, all three survived including my son.

  19. Hi Jeff. Just wondering if your magazine is out yet and if not, when will it be available? I feel like a kid at Christmas waiting to get a copy. I live in Orleans. Where will it be distributed? Thank you. Long time fan of yours sir.

    1. Hey Frank, good to hear from you!

      The wait is almost over my friend, we are working on layout this week and should be in distribution next week. I’ll check with Publisher Dave on the outlets in Orleans and east, but I know Yves Grandmaitre at Petrie Island will surely have copies, and copious other places as well..just have to confirm where.

      Oh, SAIL at trainyards also!

      Stay tuned as it wont be long. So glad you’re as excited as I am, even though this will be a shorter ‘teaser’ issue, I believe you will enjoy it very much!

      Regards

      Outdoorsguy

  21. Hehe, I think I’ll leave that to you and Uncle Ted
    imacdon, I once had an incident similar. I was hunting with a Walker hound dogging out a bush when the dumb dog walked out on a slightly frozen pond. It wasn’t chasing a deer because it didn’t chase deer. All it did was eat. Anyway half way across the pond it broke through. It’s front paws were holding it above water but it was just hanging on. I watched for a while and realized it wasn’t getting out, so it was go get it or it would surely die. So I started walking out and broke through immediately. I had to break the ice all the way out to the dog, about 40 yards and I was up to my chest in water, then I had to drag it all the way back to shore. Anyway I still finished the chase and kept moving just to warm up. They all laughed at me back at camp suggesting really it was me that broke through and the dog had saved me. I was not amused.

  24. The NCC showed up. Now that’s facinating. The NCC, the same people that own land and rent it out to farmers? The landlords who threaten their tenants that if there is any hunting (including bow) happens on the rented property knowingly or not, their lease and their livelyhood will immediately be terminated? Facinating!
    Don’t hold your breath waiting for them to act.

  25. yes the ncc are a joke and parasites ,and always need more money than brains they have land near Kanata with over 40 deer living in a small zone and should have a limited hunt each year to reduce the herds but they won’t let anyone on the property but a few keep taking out vehicles along the same area each year and wow the city put out little reflectors like the deer have time to read traffic markers lol

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